Something to Be Thankful For
by willowscribe
Summary: As Amestris' Day of Thanks goes on, Edward Elric wonders what exactly he has to be thankful for. Roy Mustang may give him the answer.


**As I arrived home after visiting family for Thanksgiving today, I was struck with the sudden urge to write. What, I didn't know, but I had to write something. After a day of Thanksgiving celebrations, I was suddenly inspired by the thought of what our favorite alchemist prodigy would do on a day like Thanksgiving. This is the result. Enjoy the story and remember to drop me a review!  
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**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is not mine, it belongs to Hiromu Arakawa.**

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The empty streets of Central City were cold and impersonal. Covered in a disgusting gray slush patterned in an abstract array of footprints, they spoke of people who had family to be with, people who had something worth celebrating.

Outside, the lonesome sidewalk now echoed of something once had, but now lost. The only pedestrian currently occupying the resolute concrete was a hunched figure in the distance who stared blankly at the river that ran alongside the main boulevard in Central. The person stood staring down at the dark, murky waters from behind the railing for a long period of time, despite the cold rain pelting his face. The long overcoat he wore whipped forlornly around his knees, the thin fabric soaked through by the elements. With a shake of his head, the figure turned, shoved his hands in his pockets, and began to walk down the empty streets, head hunched in a futile attempt to remain dry.

Edward Elric hated Amestris' Day of Thanks.

Traditionally, the national holiday was a day filled with visits to family, large meals, and good times reflecting on what a person had to be thankful for. The train traffic had exploded that morning, the cars filled with Amestrains traveling all over the country to visit relatives, people traveling to see family that perhaps they hadn't seen for a full year. People were excited on this day. They made lists of blessing they had and reflected on all the good things in their lives. They shared lively feasts with their extended families and caught up on all that had happened to their relatives over the past year. The Day of Thanks was a day of happiness.

Of course, for Ed, it was a miserable day. It served as a bitter reminder of all that had been lost and had not been gained. It was a time of reflecting on where he had gone wrong.

His only living family member was Alphonse. Hohenheim simply didn't count. Of course, the day reminded him of the father that had left him. He couldn't even visit Winry and Pinako, as they were going to see Winry's maternal grandmother who lived out west.

Alphonse was armor and couldn't eat. A feast was pointless if Ed would be the only one eating it while Al just sat and watched. It was a bitter reminder of their mistakes, this acute awareness of Al's body.

There wasn't much to be thankful for when your name was Edward Elric.

This, more than anything else, was what had driven him to wander the cold, windy streets of Central that evening. Warm light poured from the windows of each house he passed, pooling on the street, creating a pocket of safety and security absent everywhere else. The sounds of joyous laughter echoed loudly in Ed's ears.

The teenager didn't even know where he was going as he walked. He just needed to _move_, to do something, anything, to take his mind off of things. It was to his surprise that his footsteps led him directly to Central's military headquarters.

It made sense, he supposed. There weren't many places in Central he frequented, and this was one of them. Perhaps he was just so used to walking the route that his feet had automatically directed him here.

The thought that he automatically went to military headquarters dampened Ed's already low spirits a bit more. He was only fifteen; no fifteen-year-old should even be allowed in the military!

The wind wailed a bit louder in his ears.

Sighing, Ed was about to turn his back when the light from an office window caught his eye. It was the only window that had any sign of life coming from it; all the officers important enough to have an office with a window were at home with their families. It was a sudden jolt of realization when Ed recognized whose window it was.

It made bitter sense, he realized. Mustang didn't have any family of his own, at least, that Ed knew of. Honestly, he was surprised that the man wasn't out drinking tonight.

Quickly flashing his pocket watch to the poor guard picked for patrol that night, Ed slipped inside the impressive gates and headed down the path toward Roy's building. Darting up three flights of stairs, the golden-haired boy didn't stop until he was standing right in front of the door to Roy's office. Never before had the familiar threshold seemed so imposing, and it led Ed to question why he'd even come here in the first place. If Mustang wanted to spend his Day of Thanks inside his office, it was his problem!

Despite this, Ed slowly raised a prosthetic arm and knocked cautiously on the door. A moment's pause, then: "Come in."

Slipping quietly inside the room, Ed noted his commanding officer's surprise when he glanced up to see who it was. The teen's bright golden eyes quickly took in the scene before him: Roy Mustang, slumped in a chair, a stack of paperwork in front of him and a bottle of some unidentifiable alcohol in his hand. Roy raised his eyebrows slightly before gently placing the bottle on his desk. "Hello, Fullmetal."

"Mustang," Ed greeted coolly, stepping further inside the room. The colonel gazed at him appraisingly, silently judging him. The intense concentration on his made Ed squirm.

For a moment, Mustang was silent, before he muttered, "Bad day?"

"You could say that," Ed snorted bitterly before flopping on to the couch in front of Roy's desk. "You?"

"Same."

An uncomfortable silence fell between the two before Ed asked quietly, "Why here?"

Roy seemed to understand what he meant. "Same as you, probably. Better to spend the evening here than to spend it fighting off drunk women."

"Though you liked that."

"Not tonight."

The pair lapsed into another uneasy silence. Roy broke it a few minutes later by asking, "Where's Alphonse?"

Ed shrugged. "He's like me. He needed to be alone. Today really reminds him of his armor."

"I don't blame him."

Silence.

"Have you eaten anything all evening?" Roy queried.

"Do you think I have?"

"Right."

A moment, then: "Do you want to go get some food?"

"Sure, whatever."

"What do you like?"

"Whatever's fine."

"How about some Xingese food? I know a place in this little market near where I live, and since the people who own it are immigrants, they don't celebrate the Day of Thanks. It'll be open."

"Alright then."

The silence was more comfortable this time as Roy grabbed his coat from the nearby coat rack. He eyed Ed's red jacket with a skeptical look on his face. "It's that all you're wearing?"

Ed shrugged. "Better than nothing."

With a sigh, Roy grabbed a black scarf and shoved it in Ed's general direction. At the teen's confused look, the colonel heaved a heavy sigh. "You'd be no good in the line of duty if you got hypothermia, right?"

With a silent nod, Ed wrapped the scarf around his neck. He knew that he wouldn't be going on another mission for at least another two weeks, and he knew that Mustang knew as well. But still, it was easier to blame work than to work out the sensation of actually caring. Ed didn't mind. Neither he nor Mustang were very verbal people, but they understood each other on an odd level that was really quite unique.

Outside, they trudged silently through the slush toward Roy's car, which was parked in the lot beside the building. Ed slipped around to the left side passenger seat while Roy took the wheel. There was no conversation as they drove. Ed's molten eyes remained focused on the methodical movement of the windshield wipers fighting to remove any trace of the freezing rain. When they finally pulled up outside the little market, almost every building was closed down, save for the little restaurant Roy had mentioned.

The pair quickly darted inside the warm building, and Ed instantly felt at ease, overwhelmed by the warmth and light and foreign scents. He and Roy weren't the only one's there, but there weren't many other patrons. They took a seat by the widow which gave them a clear view to the miserable weather outside. Roy left him there while he went to order them some food at the counter, Ed having said he'd really eat anything Roy would get.

After about five minutes, Roy sat back down with a pager and stared out the window, ignoring Ed entirely. Ed didn't mind. He was simply basking in the presence of another human being; it didn't matter that he was being ignored. The simple sensation of not being _alone_ had filled him to the brim with a comfortable warmth that he couldn't describe. It just made him… happy.

When the pager went off, he and Roy rose to get their food. A few minutes later, the pair were again seated and Ed was juggling his chopsticks, trying to make them actually pick up food. As he dropped a piece of meat into a helping some foreign vegetable and let out a loud groan, Roy suddenly began to laugh. It wasn't a quiet, gentle laugh either, but a full, booming one that echoed throughout the near-vacant restaurant and caused Ed to begin laughing as well. Together, the military men howled shamelessly at Ed's predicament before finally quieting when they began receiving dirty looks from the other patrons. Quietly, they began to snicker again when Ed succeeded in mixing the vegetable and meat into the sauce and effectively created a stew of Xingese foods. The next ten minutes were spent teaching Ed how to actually use chopsticks before the pair commenced their meal, much more light-hearted than before. It was as if a dam had been opened, and conversation suddenly commenced, with topics ranging from the military brass to split pea soup. As the clock inched towards nine-thirty, they finally exited and hopped back into Roy's car.

As Roy drove Ed back to his apartment that he shared with Al, they again sat in silence, although this one was a comfortable kind – the kind shared when two people just bask in each other's presence. It was a gentle and calm and surprisingly easy silence, one that lasted all the way to Ed's apartment. As he hopped out of the car, Ed made a motion to give Roy his scarf back. The man blocked his move quickly.

"Keep it. Can't have you getting hypothermia after all." Before the blond could protest, Roy had closed the door and taken off, black car vanishing in the night. Ed stared for a long moment before turning away.

And as he climbed the staircase to his apartment door, Ed clutched the scarf to his chest and reflected that maybe he did have something to be thankful for.


End file.
